Oscars: The More Things Change, the More Things Stay the Same
This year’s Oscars telecast was perhaps the first I remember where the actual telecast seemed a little anticlimactic at first. Kevin Hart’s going to be our host! No, wait, never mind! But we WILL have a popular movie category! No, no, scratch that, too! But we FOR SURE will hand out awards during commercial breaks! […]
The Terrible Truth of Beautiful Boy
“I need to find a way to fill this big, black hole in me.” Nic Sheff (Timothée Chalamet) says this in Beautiful Boy, speaking in a meeting to family, friends and fellow addicts. He’s talking about his own addictions, especially to crystal meth. “I felt complete,” he says of the aftermath of taking the drug. […]
A Conversation With Kirk Cameron on Media Discernment (Part I)
Death to Comments:
Tomorrowland Rides to Weekend Win
It wasn’t exactly a win for the ages. But hey, maybe that means hard cold cash won’t be so important in the future. Tomorrowland strapped on a currency-powered jet pack and then bounced and tumbled across the box office field this weekend with an estimated $33 million take ($40.7 million if you count Memorial Day […]
Finding Tomorrowland
Disney’s Tomorrowland opens today. If you’d like to read about it, check out my review. But in this space, let me just say this is the most optimistic rumination on the future that I’ve seen in a long, long time. Seems we don’t do optimism very well these days. I saw Tomorrowland hot on the […]
Pitch Perfect 2 Hits High Note
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Gatsby says of his great love, Daisy, “Her voice is full of money.” Perhaps the same can now be said of Fat Amy. In an appropriately pitched battle at the box office, Pitch Perfect 2 took on two lauded actioners and warbled past them both, trilling its way […]
Ultron Foils Hot Pursuit
Reese Witherspoon’s Hot Pursuit tried to chase down the superheroes. The comedy flipped on its lights, cranked the siren and radioed for backup. But let’s face it: There’s only so much you can do when your quarry flies a quinjet. Avengers: Age of Ultron kept its hulkish grasp on the box office crown this weekend, […]
Seeing Age of Ultron’s Vision Clearly
Avengers: Age of Ultron has been out for, oh, about 90 seconds, and already you’re seeing them: T-Shirts, bumper stickers and mugs bearing the slogan “Jarvis Is My Co-pilot.” We see the bumper sticker ever so briefly when Tony Stark’s flying the Avengers’ quinjet. It’s a quick glimpse, but it speaks volumes—Tony’s reliance on his […]
Lifting Our Vine-Entwined Spoons
Scotsman Ryan McHenry died Sunday after a two-year struggle with osteosarcoma. He was 27. Some of you might not have heard of McHenry. But in the world of Vine, a YouTube-like social network that allows users to share six-second video clips, he was a star, best known for his “Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal” […]